Issue - meetings

To receive a report setting out the reasons for and legal basis of the Council’s current severance policy and to consider what approach to take in the future.

The Chief Officer: Human Resources presented a paper setting out the reasons for, and legal basis of, the Council’s current severance policy. 

The Committee was informed that the Employment Committee had agreed at its meeting on 12 October 2011 to recommend to Council that when calculating redundancy payments for those with no immediate access to pension a multiplier of 1.75 of the statutory table be used.

It was reported that 172 out of 175 local authorities had responded to a recent survey on severance policies with 56% of responders confirming that they paid multipliers of either 1.5 or 2 and 9 out of 10 responders using actual salaries to calculate redundancy payments.

It was noted that when considering potential redundancies redeployment opportunities were always considered in the first instance however schools could not be made to take on redeployed staff. 

The Committee was pleased by the proposal to retain the weekly wage as a basis for redundancy calculations.  In view of increasing primary school rolls and the number of schools taking on additional staff the Committee considered the proposals to be reasonable.  

RESOLVED that the Committee recommends to schools that subject to full Council agreement they:

1. Retain the use of actual weekly pay levels for redundancy purposes
2. Retain the policy of paying statutory weeks only to those with immediate access to pension
3. Reduce the current x2.5 multiplier of the statutory table for those with no immediate access to pension to a multiplier of x1.75
4. Continue with the policy of awarding added years only in exceptional circumstances
5. Apply the new policy with effect from 1 December 2011